


They used to shout my name, Now they whisper it

by MyDarkSideWearsPink



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, F/M, Marauders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:21:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22963819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyDarkSideWearsPink/pseuds/MyDarkSideWearsPink
Summary: This time, he knows what he's dying for.Jily Hunger Games AU One Shots.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 7
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> James as Finnick, obviously, because my babes. Lily as Annie.
> 
> Not neccessary to have read the HG but probably easier to understand if you know what it's about.
> 
> Title is from the amazing "Yellow flicker beat" song Lorde wrote for the Mockingjay movie.

James is 7 when his life changes for the first time. 

It’s the first day of school, for him, but not for the other kids. He had a governess until then, teaching him to be a proper gentleman, to read, write, count and swim better than the rest - he’ll be the Mayor of District 4 someday, after all.

It’s his first day at school but he knows a lot more than all the poorer kids who can’t pay for school books, have to work on afternoons, or are too tired, sick and hungry to learn properly. He’s privileged, he knows that, and he thinks he ‘ll be the best in class and make his parents proud, but he isn’t. There’s a girl before him, the teacher’s pet, who can read, write, count, swim and learn twice as quickly as him and knows the answers to all the teacher’s questions. She has red hair and wears rags that show bruised knees and worn-out shoes. He’s rich, spoiled, self-entitled, arrogant, and hates being bested by a girl from the slums. She’s poor, determined, short-tempered, hard-working, and hates him for all he is.

James is 7 when his life changes, because for the first time he goes to school and for the first time he falls in love. 

  
James is 14 when his life changes for the second, most drastic time. 

His life until then was simple, the daily routine of any teenage boy. His concerns were miles away from those of the poorer kids, worlds away from the hunger, the poverty, the punishments, or the Games. Creating new pranks for him and Peter to play on unsuspecting victims. Best Lily Evans in class. Go to her father’s fish shop when she works there and inform her she is going to marry him some day, just so she gets mad and he can run away laughing while she throws dead fishes at him. Make his mother laugh. Learn his father's job. Repeat.

Life is simple. Life is carefree. Life is not perfect, it’s actually terrible for everyone around him, but James has blinders on and he’s easy to please. He’s popular, good-looking, funny, athletic, strong, and he could be a good Career in two or three years, his teachers try to convince his parents. He doesn’t have to wait that long. 

James is 14 when his life changes for the second, most drastic time. One minute he’s a just a boy, and the next one he is a tribute, thrown into a fancy train towards his death and all thoughts of friends, parents, grades and Lily Evans’ glares are left behind, belonging to the life he’ll never get to live. 

James is two months older when he changes. 

He doesn’t know when exactly the change occurs. Maybe when he lies, really lies, for the first time on national TV and says it’s an honour to have been picked. Or when he kills someone for the first time, or the second, or the times after. Or when he holds Mary MacDonald’s hand as she dies. Or maybe when he lies again, and laughs as he watches the footages because they want a show and it’s easy to give them just that, easy to pretend the boy who killed other children onscreen isn’t him, so easy to pretend every cheer from the mad crowd thrills him, too easy to pretend he’s the hero they want him to be. 

He knows he has changed when he gets home, though, because everyone looks at him differently. His father doesn’t laugh at his jokes anymore, his mother walks to his bed several times a night to keep the nightmares away, and Peter has the same look of admiration in his eyes but it’s tainted with fear. He loses friends, and stops going to school. But he goes to the fish shop one day and tells Lily Evans she must want to marry him more than ever now, and the fish lands right in his face this time.

James is 14 and a few months older and he may have changed but this hasn’t. It’s comforting and he smiles on his way out and comes back on the next day, and the day after that, and everyday, until some day he swears he sees her smile as well.

James is 15 when he becomes a mentor and loses his two first tributes, and he learns to harden his heart and not to grieve. 

The victor this year is 15 as well, but James doesn’t care until they both somehow end up drunk on his bedroom floor at the party given in 4 during the Victory Tour. Sirius Black laughs loudly but has the same haunted look in his eyes, and James has never felt closer to anyone else until then. 

James is 15 when he learns he doesn’t have to go through all of this alone. 

James is 16 when President Riddle decides he’s old enough to serve his country again. 

He’s handsome, after all, and still one of the favourite Victor, liked in the Districts and Capitol both, and people would pay a great price for his company. He knows he can’t refuse, anyway, because Sirius did and Regulus has contracted a strange illness and died the following week. 

James is 16 when he becomes the official Capitol’s loverboy, and an unofficial whore. 

James is 18 and so is Lily Evans when she’s picked. 

She fights bravely; first him, then the typical delicate princess role they want her to play, and finally her way to victory. She’s as bright as he was in the Arena, the fire in her eyes matching the fire she starts that catches the whole forest and her last opponents. 

He reaches to her first afterwards, manages to get to her hospital bed before any of Riddle’s minions and that’s when he has the idea for his best prank to date. She has played their part in the Arena, she has killed and fought and lied and set the world on fire but the night of the interview, she plays _his_ part. She laughs when she shouldn’t, gives unintelligible answers, shifts from touches and loses focus and quickly the Capitol loses interest in the “Mad Victor”. A broken girl is a poor image to flaunt around, after all, the embarassing living testimony of their system's failures. It’s not a foolproof plan but it works. Soon the world will chose to forget about her, and she won’t be sold as he and Sirius and the others are. 

In private, she stands tall but she’s broken. She's no longer the girl he loves and he's no longer the boy she hates, they're other people now and they stand as equals. James falls in love with her all over again. She cries in his arms on the train ride back home, and this time when he tells her she is going to marry him it is not a jest but a promise. 

James is 18 when he makes love for the first time. He’s not a virgin, not at all, he's done more things in two years than most people do in a lifetime, but that’s the time he choses to remember as his first, because they are both willing and eager and broken and it’s sweet and bitter and tastes like tears, his and hers, and it’s _real._

  
James is 19 when Alice Fortescue and Frank Longbottom defy all odds and win the Games _together._

The world calls them star-crossed lovers. They don’t play by the rules but James gets that, he gets the look in Alice’s eyes because he too feels rage, he gets Frank’s despair because he too has a girl on fire he’d protect at all costs. 

James is 19 when the first sparks of a revolution catch and spread over the twelve districts, weak but getting stronger everyday, and he feels truly alive for the very first time. 

  
James is 20 when he’s back in the Arena. 

He never thought he would, feels sick at the prospect, but he volunteers because Lily’s name is drawn again and there’s no way he’d let her go alone. She slaps him after, hard, then kisses him just as hard and they make love for what feels like the last time in the train where they made love for the first time. 

For this Game, they don't play by the rules either. None of them does. He will not be the Capitol's darling womanizer anymore, will not hide that his heart belongs to her, and she drops the mad girl act. In the Arena, most of the Victors refuse to fight each other, and they fight together instead, James and Lily and Sirius and Remus and Alice and Franck and Andromeda and Marlene and Moody and Minerva and Dorcas, against Riddle. Not all of them survive it. It's a dangerous game they are playing, but it's all right. James has known worst Games. 

The world outside the Arena is on the verge of a war. Lily whispers words of revolution against his skin, and there's a spark in Sirius' eyes for the first time since Regulus' death. Hope is contagious. Fire is catching. One night the fake sky explodes and stars crumble and a hovercraft takes the rebels to a safe place. The real fight may begin, now. They are ready.

James is 20 when he stops being what Riddle wants him to be, and he becomes the face of the revolution. 

  
James is still 20 when he gets married.

James usually hates the cameras, but not this time. He doesn't mind when his image is used if it's for their cause, the good cause. This time, he's showing the world who he is really is. He wants that. He wants both sides, rebels and enemies, to know he's not broken, to know he's still fighting, to see how gorgeous Lily is, laughing and dancing in her second-hand wedding dress, and that happiness is still possible, nevermind Riddle, the Games, or the war.

James is 20 when his life is finally his, not Riddle's, for the first time, and he gives it to Lily willingly.

  
James is 21 when he fells in love for the last time.

They've been careless, he knows, and they should have known better, really, than to bring a child in this war, but they didn't plan for this. In their defence, the baby was conceived before their second Games, and they are only humans, after all. They were young and in love, reckless and sure they would both die, so they didn't care taking precautions. 

But they are alive in the end and so is the baby, pressing tiny feet and hands to his mother's womb so James can make out their shape on Lily's skin. It's a dangerous world they live in. They are hidden in a District regularly bombed, confined underground, they haven't seen the sun in months. Outside, the war is still raging on, but he knows it's coming to an end, and he wants to see their old world fall with his own eyes. He knows Dumbledore is planning another assault wave, the last one, and he knows what little friends he has left will join and deliver Riddle the fatal blow. Lily knows too, she hears Sirius and Marlene talk about it, and she makes him swear not to join. She is confined to bed, due any day now, and begs him never to go where she can't follow. He swears and he means it, but then the baby is born and everything changes. 

Harry opens his eyes, green and sparkling like Lily's, and James falls in love for the last time. He holds his son in his arms and feels fear and wonder both. Harry is tiny, frail, too perfect and pure for a world where children are made to kill each other, and James can't stand it. When Lily falls asleep, more beautiful than ever with their child curled on her chest, James feels his heart clench with pride and hurt. He leans towards their sleeping forms, and makes another promise to Harry : he will destroy the old world and make him a new one where he can be safe, and happy, and _free._

James is 21 when he betrays his last oath to his wife and leaves in the dark of the night with the special squad.

James is 21 when he dies.

He dies in a dark tunnel, surrounded by mutts. He dies barely an hour after Sirius, Dorcas, Moody and Tonks and it makes him feel a little less alone. He dies because of the bomb his friend sends in his way. The last thing he sees is Remus' eyes shining down on him, a silent apology on his lips and he nods. Remus knows that it's to be done and does not hesitate, and that's why James knows, as he takes his last breath, that they are going to win. They will reach Riddle, no matter their losses, and Marlene will kill him, and end the madness, and James will be one of the last casualties of this stupid war. 

James is 21 when he dies. He's terribly young and he still has so much left to live, but it's all right. It's not meaningless. This time, he knows what he's dying for.

  
Harry is 12 when he sees the sea for the first time. 

Lily and Remus take him to the ruins of the District where his parents met and grew. They teach him to swim and sit him on the sand afterwards. They let the bright sun dry their skin, and they talk. For the first time, they tell him the story of the Games. They speak of a revolution that set aflame a whole country and spread like a fireforest. They teach him the names of those who died, by their hands or against their will. They teach him the price of freedom, the pain of grieving, the struggle of surviving, and the importance of remembering. Then, as the sun declines on the horizon, they speak of a boy with hazel eyes who fought for a better world.

Harry is 12 and in age for the Games, but the Games are no more and he is safe. His father made sure of that.


	2. The scars that mark my body they're silver and gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily's pov.

_Blue_

Blue is the colour of District 4. 

Everything is blue. The sky, the sea where she swims everyday, the walls on Dad's shop, Mum's eyes and Mum's dress the day she is burried.

Blue is James Potter's skin when he comes back from his Games. It's been weeks but he still carries the marks on his body. She can see the bruises when he undresses and goes to swim at the beach on her front door. It's not like she watches him, of course, but she can't help but notice him. His presence is powerful like that. Every head turns when he walks in. They see a hero, or a murderer, nothing more, but Lily sees the shadow of the boy he once was. More, she sees the man he will become, and she is drawn to him like she is drawn to the blue of the sea.

_Orange_

Orange is the Arena. Orange is the brightest colour she's ever seen, the only colour she can see when she cracks a single match and it catches on the dry grass, the fallen leaves and dead trees. The fire is beautiful and deadly, but she's dying and it's her only chance. 

It's a matter of a couple hours at most and her small world is entirely burning. It looks like Hell would, she thinks, but she watches, sick and fascinated as red, orange and yellow intertwine and swallow the lifes of the few people that still stand between her and home.

Ironically, her dress for the Victory interview is orange. It's clashing horribly with her hair, but it's good because it makes her look sick and strange and out of place in this world and it serves their plans well. Orange is the colour of madness.

_Hazel_

Hazel is the colour of James Potter's eyes.

She doesn't know what to make of James Potter. He doesn't fit into her life. He's too tall, too loud, too warm, too bright, too much, bigger than life itself. But then, she doesn't even fit her own life anymore. Everything is different, she is different, and he is the only constant.

She is alone in this new house too big for herself, because Dad won't leave his shop and Petunia looks at her with disgust, as if she could still make out the blood on her pale hands. Her previous friends seem to think she truly is the mad girl they saw on TV, and maybe she is, she can't tell what's true and what's not anymore. But James is, undeniably, true. She feels terribly alone in her house, so naturally she spends her nights at his, their naked limbs intertwined as he whispers sweet nothings in her ear.

She isn't sure what she feels for him because she isn't sure she can feel anything anymore except the burn of her scars from the fireforest or the stickiness of Benjy Fenwick's blood on her hands that won't leave, no matter how hard she scrubs.

She doesn't know how to fit James Potter and his hazel eyes into her life, but she doesn't have to. Slowly, James Potter makes himself fit perfectly.

_Green_

Green is the colour of envy. Jealousy, everytime James leaves for the Capitol and she stays behind and she doesn't understand. She can't understand how he could whisper words of devotion and eternal love against her skin, in her mouth and on the crook of her neck and between her thighs and then leave for this awful place and parade with women and men at his arm, each time someone different. He doesn't talk about it, refuses to look her in the eyes when she asks and they fight, but she knows. She sees them on mandatory TV, sees him move like he owns the place - and he does. She can't reconcile the Capitol's darling, flaunting and smirking and never talking about her with the man she loves, with the man who cries in her arms at night when the nightmares struck and he kisses her own tears away.

One day, she understands. She isn't really surprised, she always knew there has to be a good reason why he'd leave her and fail his oaths, but she never suspected /she/ was the reason. He does it all for her, pretends and lies and offers his body to the people who send them and countless other kids to their deaths every year so /she/ doesn't have to, so the Mad Victor is never summoned to this city of depravity and is left untouched. 

Green is the colour of new bruises on his precious skin when he cames back, reminders of his other lovers' unwanted affections, and she kisses all of them. Maybe if she loves him hard enough, she can make them all disappear. Maybe it will help. He says it does, so she kisses him again.

_Red_

Red is blood. Blood in her nightmares, blood on his skin when he comes back home, blood on both their hands from all the children they've been made to kill. 

Red is the colour of the sunset in this new Arena. It's odd that such a beautiful vision can be offered in such an awful place, but it's not, not really. She's used to such contradictions. She found love in a shared trauma, and now she finds hope in the eyes of the tributes that are supposed to be their enemies and a purpose in whispers of revolution during the Quarter Quell.

Red is the explosion in the night sky when the Arena crashes and finally, they are free.

  
_Grey_

The world in the bunker is grey. All in shades of grey, the walls and their clothes and the food and their skins underneath the grey neons. Grey is the colour of the war, the colour of dead bodies and weapons and the smoke after every attack. It's grey everywhere but she sees all colours of the rainbow when James' naked form is pressed against hers in the night and she feels their baby move in her womb between their bodies.

  
_Black_

The world is dark when James is robbed from her just as every colour is robbed from her life. Everything is dark and she could as well be blind for she can't see anything but the empty grave bearing her husband's name. The war is won, Riddle defeated, the Games cancelled after one last punishing edition, but her world remains dark.

  
_Green_

Green is Harry's eyes. They're bright, as bright as hers once were, so bright and magical they somehow manage to fight the darkness away, until one day green is all she can see.

She clings to her son's tiny warm body and she can't help but imagine James', cold and roting in a dark cave somewhere in the ruins of the city he hated, but she finds out that life is stronger than death, in the end. Harry laughs as if everything is right in the world and maybe this time it is. Slowly, he grows, and he looks more and more like his father everyday but the colours he brings in her life are new and blinding, his very own special spectrum, and Lily is never afraid of the dark anymore.

Green is Harry's eyes and hers, wide with wonder when she finally takes him to the sea and they make a life in the house James and her have shared, happy and free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is it. Now, I really don't want to leave this world. Hunger Games AU is my favourite trope, and I lowkey (highkey) want to expand this, like write the full story of James and Lily's Games, the Quarter Quell, the war and their relationship throughout it all. Would it be something some of you would like to read ? Anyway, let me know what you thought of those short chapters. Thanks for reading !

**Author's Note:**

> Just an idea that popped into my head, because James is kind of like Finnick : handsome, brave, arrogant, a martyr, one half of two of the greatest love stories ever, died and left their infant sons alone and definitly deserved better.


End file.
